Page 1 of Love You
Chapter One
Someone was breathing on Win Garner’s neck. Warm puffs of air that felt like dog’s breath. Lucy or Ricky? Nah, the two Labrador retrievers lived with his parents. He racked his brain to remember if he’d brought someone home. Maybe that brunette he’d played darts with at Old Glory. Nope. He didn’t do that anymore.
He rolled to the other side of the bed and in his half-asleep state, chalked the sensation up to a drafty apartment. Or a dream. Or a ghost. He didn’t really care which one because according to his internal clock, he was still on snooze control.
Then it happened again. A soft little tickle across his cheek. He swatted it away and rolled onto his stomach. This time he felt the mattress dip and something brush against his arm. Something warm and distinctly human. The realization startled him awake and he jolted upright.
“What the hell?” He reached for the lamp, thinking once he turned it on he could use it as a weapon. Bad idea because he didn’t have a lamp or anything that could be used as a weapon, except a baseball bat, which he kept with his sports gear. And his sports gear was scattered all over his puny apartment, which meant it was probably within arm’s reach. Somewhere.
“Shush,” someone said in the dark. “It’s just me.”
He searched his memory for “me” and came up empty. But “me” was definitely female. Soft, round, and very good-smelling. Six months ago, it wouldn’t have been too unusual having a strange woman crawl into his bed in the middle of the night. But Win was on the wagon from anything that was bad for him, which included hookups of any variety. Been there, done that, nearly had the shotgun wedding to prove it.
“Who’s me?” he asked as the fog began to clear and his brain began to sharpen.
“Darcy.”
Darcy? He hadn’t met a Darcy that night. The brunette had been an Ida. He remembered because the name was unusual for someone in her thirties. And she’d kicked his ass in eight ball, which was also unusual. The only Darcy he knew was the receptionist at his family’s extreme sports company, Garner Adventure.
“Darcy Wallace?” he asked tentatively because if she was here someone he cared about was in the hospital. Darcy and Win’s brother, TJ, made the trains run on time at GA. This also entailed notifying the rest of the family whenever an emergency came up. And in the adventure business they came up a lot.
When she didn’t answer, he swung his legs off the bed and stumbled in the dark to the light switch.
Holy shit!
Darcy Wallace lay in his bed in a fire-engine red lace teddy, spiked heels, and nothing else. Her breasts were spilling out of the cups of the lingerie and her blond hair curled around her shoulders in a style reminiscent of every high school girl’s senior yearbook photo.
Whoa, not the Darcy he knew. Not even close. He shut his eyes, hoping to erase the picture. She was every dude’s wet dream and she wasn’t supposed to be. She was supposed to be Garner Adventure’s office sweetheart, not a freaking centerfold. He opened them just long enough to take two long strides to the bed and flip the covers over her.
“What are you doing here, Darce?” It came out like a growl, not because he was angry, because he was . . . affected. And he didn’t want to be.
She wouldn’t make eye contact and her face turned as red as the teddy. “I’m . . . uh . . . here for sex.”
It was the story of his freaking life. Women loved him. Young, old, single, married, it didn’t seem to matter. From the time he was old enough to grow whiskers, they’d been throwing themselves at him. And in the interest of fairness, he’d been throwing himself right back. But not Darcy. She was . . . well . . . a friend. Sort of. The truth was unlike the rest of the female population, Darcy barely gave him the time of day. Until now.
She tossed the blanket off, stretched her arms down at her sides, and lay stiff as a board, like she was waiting for an undertaker to come get her. “Okay, let’s get to it then.”
He blew out a breath. “Since when am I your type?” he asked, and continued to stand there, a bit shell-shocked, wondering if perhaps this was someone’s idea of a practical joke.
Her face got even redder. “You’re everyone’s type. But apparently, I’m not yours.” She jerked the blanket back over her and tugged it up to her chin.
Until six months ago, every woman was his type. He was trying to change that image and Darcy wasn’t making it any easier. His gaze flipped to the front door, which he would’ve sworn he’d locked after coming home from Old Glory.
“How’d you get in?” He checked the clock on his desk, which was cluttered with cups from the Juicery. Jeez, it was two in the morning.
“I have your key, remember?” When he did overnights with GA’s tour groups she took care of his cat. Correction: The neighborhood cat that had turned out to be a lousy mouser. Someone had to feed the mangy thing.
He sat in an old, overstuffed chair the last tenant had left behind and ran his fingers through his hair. Pants would probably be good but he didn’t know where they were and couldn’t seem to focus on anything other than her. “Let me ask you something. How would you react if one of your guy friends showed up in your bedroom in the middle of the night, uninvited? I would hope you’d call the cops.”
She sat up and leaned her back against the headboard, clutching the blanket until her fingers looked like they were ready to snap in half. “Is that what you’re going to do, call the police?”
Hell no. Win’s eldest brother was the police chief. One look at this scenario and Colt would automatically blame Win, accuse him of seducing their shy, little receptionist. Except from where Win was sitting, Darcy wasn’t so shy. Or little. From what he’d seen, she was a curvy package, round in all the right places.
And the fact that he was even contemplating Darcy’s curves was violating his new policy against casual hookups. But old habits die hard.
“No,” he said, and flipped his hand between them. “But I’m still not clear on what you’re doing here.” Win never would’ve pegged Darcy as the booty-call type. But it was always the quiet, demure ones who surprised you.
“I told you.” She leaned forward and appeared to be summoning her gumption. “Sex. I was in the mood.”
